


Family Matters

by doctorhelena



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Howling Commandos - Freeform, Steggy Positivity Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 13:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorhelena/pseuds/doctorhelena
Summary: Michael Carter gets a glimpse of what his little sister has been up to during the war.





	Family Matters

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Day 5 of Steggy Week 2018 (Domestic and Family). It’s not particularly domestic, but it is about family, so I say it counts!

This was the second time Michael Carter had been rescued by his little sister - the third, if you counted the time she’d faked alcohol poisoning to get him out of that disastrous date with Veronica Spencer. “This is becoming quite a habit,” Peggy said cheerfully, checking him over in the back of the jeep as they bumped down a forest track away from his extraction point.

“You didn’t actually rescue me this time,” he pointed out, reasonably. “I got myself to the rendezvous point. You just happened to be on the extraction team.”

“We were diverted from an unrelated operation to perform an emergency evacuation of an SOE agent who’d managed to blow his cover,” she said, closing the medical kit with a snap. “Sounds like a rescue to me.” She smiled at him. “I am glad to see you, though.”

“You too,” he said, reaching over and pulling her into a tight hug, which lasted until a sharp jolt of the jeep knocked her forehead painfully into his chin.

“Bloody Nora, Dugan, watch where you’re going!” Peggy called up irritably to the driver, a rather boisterous American sporting a decidedly non-regulation mustache and bowler hat.

“Sorry, Peg!” Dugan called back, not sounding particularly sorry at all. “We’ll be stopping soon anyway. Gotta rejig our strategy now that we have a spare Agent Carter.” He grinned.

Peggy made a face at him. “We’re nearly to our planned evening stop,” she informed Michael. “Happily, you weren’t actually much of a detour. Although, as we have neither the time nor the resources to drop you off anywhere on the way, the price of the ride will be your help with our operation tomorrow.” She held out a hand. “Welcome to your extremely brief secondment to the SSR.”

“So, we’re even, then?” he asked with his eyebrows raised. Of course they didn’t truly keep score, but both were capable of lording something like this over the other for years to come.

“Not at all,” she said, loftily. “The help is in return for the ride home. I’m afraid you’ll still owe me for the actual rescue.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned. It had almost been worth the price of his captivity at the hands of Hydra to have his sister back, no longer the shadow of herself she’d become when she’d convinced herself she had to grow up, face reality, and marry Fred Wells.

Receiving the telegram about Michael’s presumed death had shocked her out of it. Stripped down to her essentials by grief, Peggy had left a bewildered Fred practically at the altar and joined the SOE. And then, a few months later, she’d come upon Michael, weak with hunger but alive, in a Hydra prison. She’d calmly proceeded to extract him along with the prisoner she’d actually been sent to retrieve, a German scientist by the name of Erskine. Triumphant after the double success of her mission, she’d accepted an immediate transfer to the SSR to work on something so top-secret that Michael still had no idea what it had been. They hadn’t seen each other since, although they wrote as often as they could.

There was something subtly different about her now, he thought, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. War changed a person, of course, but it wasn’t that, exactly. Perhaps she’d just grown up, for real this time, come into her own in the way she’d always been meant to. She certainly didn’t seem unhappy, at any rate.

*****

It didn’t take long after they’d stopped for the night for him to realize what it was.

He’d been a spy longer than she had, after all, and he’d known her since the day she was born, when he’d held firmly to his father’s large hand and stared in delighted awe at his new sister, the loudest baby in the hospital nursery. It was hard for her to fool him, and he didn’t actually think she was trying very hard.

They piled out of the jeeps in the barn that was to be both their hiding place and shelter for the night, and after a brief flurry of activity Peggy made the introductions. Leave it to her to be casually introducing him to Captain America and the bloody Howling Commandos, Michael thought, his lips twitching slightly. No wonder her letters had lately been filled with more blacked out lines than actual words.

Peggy seemed genuinely fond of all of her companions, but it was hard to miss the subtle change in her voice when she introduced Captain Steve Rogers, nor the way the Howling Commandos watched the introduction with frank interest. Rogers shook his outstretched hand politely but warily, and it occurred to Michael with some amusement that Captain America was a little afraid of him.

Nervous or not, he had a firm handshake and a ready grin, and Michael’s first impression was that he liked him, despite the ridiculous costume.

*******

Their accomodation for the night was a large barn with a sizable hayloft and an open area below that was spacious enough to hide the jeeps away from prying eyes. After going over their mission plan for the next day, they sat on the wooden floor around an upended electric torch, passing around a flask of bourbon to make up for their unappetizing K-rations.

Dugan passed the flask to Peggy, then turned to Michael with a grin. “So, Carter, you anywhere near as intimidating as your sister?” Peggy made a face at Dugan, taking a swig of the bourbon and passing it on to Rogers.

Michael grinned. “Well,” he said slowly, “ _I_ wasn’t the 9-year-old who once punched a 16-year-old for being an ass.”

Rogers looked impressed, almost delighted. “Did he hit you back?” he asked Peggy.

“No,” Peggy said, reluctantly. “Because we were at a wedding.”

There was a burst of laughter from the Howling Commandos. “It was our cousin Paul,” explained Michael. “He was a prat, he deserved it.” He grinned at Peggy. “Remember the time he dared you to eat that entire pie?”

Peggy nodded. “I don’t know why I did it,” she said reflectively. “I didn’t even like mince. And I like it even less now. I’ve never been so sick, before or since.”

Rogers snorted. “You did it because you can never back down from anything.” She shot him a look that clearly suggested he wasn’t one to talk, but when their eyes met, Michael had the distinct impression that neither of them was thinking about mince pie anymore.

A number of the Commandos seemed to be hiding grins. “Well, Carter, you did once do 107 one-armed pushups just to win a bet,” said the man to Michael’s left with a not-so-subtle cough.

Peggy flushed slightly and turned away from Rogers. “Yes, well,” she said. “I wasn’t about to lose a bet to Howard, of all people.”

Dugan grinned. “Yeah, Stark’s an idiot. I wouldn’t have bet against you.”

Michael blinked. Howard Stark? His sister was keeping some pretty rarified company these days.

******

Peggy had always been good at holding her liquor. The night she’d pretended alcohol poisoning she’d drunk enough that Veronica had believed it without question, but Peggy had barely been hung over the next day. But, she still had tells, and as the night wore on, Michael noticed that she was sitting, subtly, closer and closer to Rogers. Rogers himself seemed unaffected by the alcohol - Michael wondered if he even _could_ get drunk -  but he was clearly quite affected by Peggy.

Eventually the watch list was drawn up and sleeping bags were unloaded and carried up to the hayloft. Peggy disappeared in the direction of the privy, Rogers watching her go with a briefly unguarded expression of utter adoration.

“So,” Michael said, beside him. “You and my sister.”

Rogers started. “Yeah,” he said, simply, reddening a little but not pretending to misunderstand. He regarded Michael with slight trepidation.

Michael grinned. “You can stop worrying. I’m not going to threaten you. Peggy would kill me, and honestly, it would be rather ridiculous.”

“Good,” said Rogers, with a tiny grin, “because she shot at me once, and I’d rather not see her do it to you.”

Michael snorted. “I won’t ask what you did,” he said. “But the simple fact that you took it well makes you a great improvement over the last fellow she introduced to the family.”

Rogers raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize she shot at people regularly. Aside from Nazis.”

“She didn’t shoot him,” said Michael, “although she did leave him at the altar, which I suppose rather pulled the rug from under his feet.” Rogers didn’t look surprised, which meant that he either had a fantastic poker face, or Peggy had told him about Fred. Michael shrugged. “He didn’t see the core of what makes her who she is. Wanted her to settle down, support him, keep the home fires burning. Live a comfortable, boring life.”

Rogers grinned. “The first time I saw her, she took a guy down with a single punch and I’ve never quite recovered. I would never want her to give up who she is.” He regarded Michael seriously. “I - ” he broke off as Peggy came back into the barn, looking at the two of them a little warily.

Michael waved her over. “Hi Peg! Just telling Rogers about that time you got the switch for stealing all your headmaster’s wife’s knickers.”

“Did you really?” asked Rogers, intrigued, and she elbowed him and glared at Michael.

Michael grinned. “Well, goodnight, then!” he said cheerily.

**************

Michael awoke into a deep darkness. He would have liked to roll over and go back to sleep, but his bladder had other ideas, so he slipped out of his sleeping bag and picked his way across the hay loft to the ladder.

Outside, in the moonlight, he checked his watch - just past 0300 hours. He’d probably been awakened by the change of duty, Dugan and Barnes relieving Peggy and Rogers on watch. He yawned. The privy was all the way across the farmyard, so he slipped around the corner of the barn. He took a step, already reaching for his zipper, then stopped short.

Despite the fact that he approved in theory, he’d really never needed to see his sister snogging someone so enthusiastically. She and Rogers were pressed up against the side of the barn, her hands fisted in his hair, his hands - actually, Michael really didn’t want to know where they were. Peggy made a soft, longing sound, and what the hell was he still doing standing here? He retreated hastily.

This was what he got for being too lazy to walk to the privy, he supposed, as he slipped around the other side of the barn to empty his bladder. He gave a little wave at Dugan and Barnes, then went back into the barn, climbed into the loft and slid back into his sleeping bag.

It seemed rather a long time before he heard the sounds of two people quietly picking their way across the loft and settling down to sleep.

*****

Michael caught Peggy by the elbow the next morning as they made their way to the jeeps. “We’re even, you know,” he said, his lips twitching.

She raised her eyebrow. “How so?”

He shot her a smug grin. “Because I’m not going to tell Mum and Dad that you’ve been having it off with Captain America.”

Peggy rolled her eyes. “First of all, I know you wouldn’t. Secondly, we both know you can’t tell them anything about him at all, you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.” She tossed her head. “And, finally, not that it’s any of your business, but I haven’t been.”

“Not yet,” he said, and she blushed, and ha, he had her.

“Not yet,” she amended, her face rather red. “Bloody Nora, Michael, did I ever ask for all the details of your love life?”

“Lord, no, please don’t give me any details,” he said, in alarm. He’d seen quite enough the night before. “I just want to know you’re happy.” He looked at her seriously. “From what I’ve seen, Rogers is a decent chap. And he doesn’t seem likely to ask you to hide your light under a bushel for the sake of his own career. I rather like him.”

“Good,” she said, simply. “Because I rather like him too.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “You don’t say.”

“Carters!” came Dugan’s booming voice from the jeeps. “Come on - family reunion’s over. Let’s go knock some Hydra heads together.”

Peggy grinned at Michael. “Ready to slay some dragons?” Michael grinned back.

Peggy had always been meant to fight.


End file.
